Hostname: page-component-76fb5796d-qxdb6 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-26T06:44:22.958Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Ordovician sponge spicules from New South Wales, Australia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 May 2016

B. D. Webby  and
J. Trotter
B. D. Webby
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Sydney, N.S.W., 2006, Australia
J. Trotter
Affiliation:
Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Sydney, N.S.W., 2006, Australia
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

An abundant, varied, and well-preserved assemblage of discrete sponge spicules of late Ordovician age is described from the Malongulli Formation of central New South Wales. It is associated with one of the most diverse Ordovician siliceous sponge faunas known. The assemblage occurs in allochthonous limestone blocks within breccia deposits of a predominantly graptolitic and spiculitic siltstone succession, and is composed mainly of hexactinellid spicule types. Included are a number of distinctive forms, recognized as new taxa—Silicunculus bengtsoni, Kometia cruciformis, Chelispongia prima, and Pseudolancicula exigua. All are new genera except Silicunculus Bengtson, 1986, which was previously described from the upper Cambrian of Queensland. The problematical Anomaloides reticulatus Ulrich, 1878, is reported for the first time from Australia. A wide variety of other diagnostic, but more generalized, spicule types also occurs, including stauractines, pinnular and nonpinnular pentactines and hexactines, ornamented oxyhexasters and echinhexasters, clavules, anchorate root-tufts, and uncinates. The pinnular pentactines may be assigned to the form genus Palaeorubus Ishiga (in Ishiga et al., 1987), interpreted incorrectly by Ishiga as a radiolarian. The sponges, discrete spicules, and radiolarians of these limestone clasts were transported in debris flows to a basinal setting from peri-platform oozes that formed on the flanks of the shallow offshore island-arc platform of the Molong High.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Paleontology , Volume 67 , Issue 1 , January 1993 , pp. 28 - 41
Copyright
Copyright © The Paleontological Society 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Bengtson, S. 1986. Siliceous microfossils from the Upper Cambrian of Queensland. Alcheringa, 10:195–216.Google Scholar
Bengtson, S., Conway Morris, S., Cooper, B. J., Jell, P. A., and Runnegar, B. N. 1990. Early Cambrian fossils from South Australia. Association of Australasian Paleontologists, Memoir 9:1–364.Google Scholar
Bergquist, P. R. 1978. Sponges. Hutchinson & Co., London, 268 p.Google Scholar
Bergström, S. M. 1979. First report of the enigmatic Ordovician microfossil Konyrium in North America. Journal of Paleontology, 53:320–327.Google Scholar
Butler, P. E. 1961. Morphologic classification of sponge spicules, with descriptions of siliceous spicules from the Lower Ordovician Bellefonte Dolomite in central Pennsylvania. Journal of Paleontology, 35:191–200.Google Scholar
Finks, R. M. 1960. Late Paleozoic sponge faunas of the Texas region. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History, 120:1–160.Google Scholar
Grant, R. E. 1836. Outlines of Comparative Anatomy, Part 2. H. Boilliere, London, 652 p.Google Scholar
Hinde, G. J. 1884. On the structure and affinities of the family of the Receptaculitidae, including therein the genera Ischadites, Murch. (Tetragonis, Eichw.); Sphaerospongia, Pengelly; Acanthoconia, gen. nov.; and Receptaculites, DeFrance. Quarterly Journal of the Geological Society of London, 40:795–849.Google Scholar
Ishiga, H., Leitch, E. C., Naka, T., Watanabe, T., and Iwasaki, M. 1987. Late Devonian Paleoscenidiidae from the Hastings Block, New England Fold Belt, N.S.W., Australia. Earth Science (Chikyu Kagaku): The Journal of the Association for the Geological Collaboration in Japan, 41(6):297–302.Google Scholar
Laubenfels, M. W. de. 1955. Porifera, p. E21–E112. In Moore, R. C. (ed.), Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, Part E. Geological Society of America and University of Kansas Press, Lawrence.Google Scholar
Marsh, O. C. 1867. Notice of a new genus of fossil sponges from the lower Silurian. American Journal of Science, Series 2, 44:88.Google Scholar
Maslov, V. P. 1956. Calcareous algae of the U.S.S.R. Transactions of the Academy of Science of the U.S.S.R., Geological Institute, 160:1–301 [in Russian].Google Scholar
Mostler, H. 1985. Neue heteractinide Spongien (Calcispongea) aus dem Unter- und Mittel-kambrium Südwestsardiniens. Bereichte des Naturwissenschaftlich-medizinchen Vereins in Innsbruck, 72:7–32.Google Scholar
Mostler, H. 1986. Beitrag zur stratigraphischen Verbreitung und phylogenetischen Stellung der Amphidiscophora und Hexasterophora (Hexactinellida, Porifera). Mitteilungen der Osterreichische Geologische Gesellschaft, 78:319–359.Google Scholar
Mostler, H. 1990. Hexactinellide Poriferen aus pelagischen Kieselkalken (Unter Lias, Nördliche Kalkalpen). Geologisch-Paläontologische Mitteilungen Innsbruck, 17:143–178.Google Scholar
Mostler, H., and Mosleh-Yazdi, A. 1976. Neue Poriferen aus oberkambrischen Gesteinen der Milaformation im Elburzgebirge (Iran). Geologisch-Paläontologische Mitteilungen Innsbruck, 5:1–36.Google Scholar
Nazarov, B. B., and Popov, L. E. 1976. Radiolyarii, bezzamkovye brakhiopody i organizmy meyasnogo sistematiicheskogo polozheniya iz srednego ordovika vostochnogo Kazakhstana [Radiolarians, inarticulate brachiopods, and organisms of uncertain systematic position from the Middle Ordovician of eastern Kazakhstan]. Paleontologicheskii Zhurnal, 1976(4):33–42.Google Scholar
Nazarov, B. B., and Popov, L. E. 1980. Stratigrafiya i fauna kremnisto-karbonatnykh tolshch ordovika Kazakhstana. (Stratigraphy and fauna of the Ordovician siliceous-carbonate deposits of Kazakhstan). Trudy geologisheskiy Institut, Moskva, 331:1–190 [in Russian].Google Scholar
Nilsson, R., and Bengtson, S. 1982. Problematic triactine spicules from the Upper Ordovician of Scania, Sweden. Geologiska Föreningen i Stockholm Förhandlingar, 103(3):377–381.Google Scholar
Poncet, J., and Blodgett, R. B. 1987. First recognition of the Devonian alga Lancicula sergaensis Shuysky in North America (west-central Alaska). Journal of Paleontology, 61:1269–1273.Google Scholar
Reid, R. E. H. 1958. A Monograph of the Upper Cretaceous Hexactinellida of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Palaeontographical Society, London, Part I:i–xlvi.Google Scholar
Reid, R. E. H. 1968. Microscleres in demosponge classification. University of Kansas, Paleontological Contributions, 35:1–37.Google Scholar
Reif, W. E. 1968. Schwammreste aus dem oberen Ordovizium von Estland und Schweden. Neues Jahrbuch Geologische und Paläontologische Monatebereich, 1968(12):733–744.Google Scholar
Riding, R. 1977. Problems of affinity in Palaeozoic Calcareous Algae, p. 202–211. In Flügel, E. (ed.), Fossil Algae, Recent Results and Developments. Springer-Verlag, Berlin.Google Scholar
Rigby, J. K. 1975. Some unusual hexactinellid sponge spicules from the Cambrian Wilberns Formation of Texas. Journal of Paleontology, 49:412–415.Google Scholar
Rigby, J. K., Chamberlain, C. K., and Black, B. A. 1970. Mississippian and Pennsylvanian sponges from the Ouachita Mountains of Oklahoma. Journal of Paleontology, 44:816–832.Google Scholar
Rigby, J. K., and Stearn, C. W. 1983. Sponges and Spongiomorphs. University of Tennessee, Department of Geological Sciences, Studies in Geology 7, 1–220.Google Scholar
Rigby, J. K., and Webby, B. D. 1988. Late Ordovician sponges from the Malongulli Formation of central New South Wales, Australia. Palaeontographica Americana, 56:1–147.Google Scholar
Schmidt, O. 1870. Grundzuge einer Spongien-Fauna des atlantischen Gebietes. W. Engelmann, Leipzig, 88 p.Google Scholar
Shuysky, V. P. 1973. Vodorosli roda Lancicula iz nikhnego devona urala. Trudy Instituta geologii i geochimii, Akademiya nauk SSSR, Uralskii naukniy centr, 99:3–12 [in Russian].Google Scholar
Ulrich, E. O. 1878. Descriptions of some new species of fossils from the Cincinnati Group. Journal of the Cincinnati Society of Natural History, 1(2):92–100.Google Scholar
Ulrich, E. O. 1895. On the structure and systematic position of “Anomaloides” and a proposal to change the name to Anomalopsongia. Minnesota Geological Survey, Final Report, 3(1):68–74.Google Scholar
Webby, B. D., and Blom, W. M. 1986. The first well-preserved radiolarians from the Ordovician of Australia. Journal of Paleontology, 60:145–157.Google Scholar
Webby, B. D., and Nicoll, R. S. 1989. Australian Phanerozoic Time Scales 2: Ordovician. Record, Bureau of Mineral Resources, Geology & Geophysics, 1989/32, 42 p.Google Scholar
Webby, B. D., and Packham, G. H. 1982. Stratigraphy and regional setting of the Cliefden Caves Limestone Group (Late Ordovician), central-western New South Wales. Journal of the Geological Society of Australia, 29:297–317.Google Scholar
Weller, J. M. 1930. Siliceous sponge spicules of Pennsylvanian age from Illinois and Indiana. Journal of Paleontology, 4:233–251.Google Scholar